


A Pattern More Complicated

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-13
Updated: 2007-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between them, Ronon and Teyla can recite a long list of gate addresses: Ronon knows the addresses of a handful of former Satedan colonies and allies, of a dozen worlds where he could hide and pretend at safety; Teyla knows how to reach trade worlds, a hundred addresses carefully hoarded by Athosians, worlds where farmers harvest grain from rich earth, or cultivate vines in hot and stony soil, worlds that ring with the sounds of the market-place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pattern More Complicated

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Wychwood for beta duty, and for providing the title.

Between them, Ronon and Teyla can recite a long list of gate addresses: Ronon knows the addresses of a handful of former Satedan colonies and allies, of a dozen worlds where he could hide and pretend at safety; Teyla knows how to reach trade worlds, a hundred addresses carefully hoarded by Athosians, worlds where farmers harvest grain from rich earth, or cultivate vines in hot and stony soil, worlds that ring with the sounds of the market-place.

On missions and during their downtime, they have visited many of them, walked their roads and talked with their people, and Ronon has searched them all as best he can. If Rodney notices that they wander away during missions, sometimes, he doesn't ask; if John knows why they make trips to other worlds without the rest of their team, he says nothing. Teyla still sees them both watch their departure from the control room, sometimes. Rodney often looks worried; John never does.

By Teyla's estimate, they have visited almost fifty worlds together. Bodel, with its silk markets and hard-bargaining merchants; Ferenne, its crumbling monarchy shored up by a city of high walls and steep streets; Clarbie, a fisherman's paradise, where it was said that the best fishing in all the ring system was to be found in its deep, wide lakes. These worlds draw people from the most remote parts of the Ringed worlds, but never once do they find a Satedan. "Three hundred," Ronon says to her, and so they keep searching, though all they seem to find is rumour and memory.

* * *

On Venerra, they find even less than that, walking for four hours in the late autumn rain to find a woman whose memories no longer reach past childhood, who is seven and seventy, uncomprehending and knowing all at once. She cannot remember the husband who came from the Satedan hinterland, the children who fled with her from Sateda's ruins and brought her to find safety with her birth family before they left in search of work, of life.

Ronon crouches down in front of her chair and takes her hand, saying "What is your name, Mother? Can you tell me your husband's name, his rank? Your children, where did they go?" Teyla keeps her gaze fixed on the floor, out of respect for them both, for Ronon's voice is very gentle, and the only answer the woman can provide is a few quavering song notes, in something that might be Satedan, or might be nonsense.

The woman's nurse does not want to give them names, or gate addresses; it is obvious from her demeanour that she does not want them in her house at all. It is a testament to the time Ronon has spent on Atlantis, Teyla thinks, that he does not protest this at all; he has learnt, in some measure, to pick his battles. She still rests her hand on his arm, light and steady, as they walk back home.

* * *

John and Rodney, on a brief excursion to Nejar Bye, hear reports of three Satedans—two brothers and a friend—who have bought farmland on a moon in the Allat sector. John looks a little uncertain when he tells Ronon, saying he would have dismissed it as rumour, if not for the names he was given. "Nesha and Fenn Rax, and Luca Keran. Sounded kinda concrete," he says, shrugging one shoulder.

Teyla sits up a little straighter in her chair, because those are Satedan names, names she could have sworn she has heard Ronon mention before—and the look on Ronon's face is so young, so boyish and so hopeful, that it makes her heart ache to think that she cannot recall ever seeing anything quite like it on his face before.

"I know them," Ronon says, and his grin is infectious.

They have missions scheduled for the next three days, exploring planets which may contain ZPMs, but somehow Rodney manages to discover something in the Ancient databases which make exploration of a backwater moon necessary, and John makes what he calls a "command decision" at dinner that evening, all loose-limbed, careful-casual sprawl at the table. "We might just check it out tomorrow," he says as he sculpts hills and valleys from the food on his plate. Teyla smiles her gratitude across the table, and Ronon says "Thanks, Sheppard."

"Anything to keep McKay happy," John says, and Rodney flicks a glob of mashed potato at him with his fork.

* * *

It's nearing winter on Atlantis, but stepping through the 'gate to Jherota means going back months, to a sun that's hot and full, the air heavy with the smell of fruit ripe to bursting. Underneath, the grass is green and thick, and Teyla knows that this is land that rewards tending.

"You could build a good life here," Teyla says to Ronon when Rodney and John start out before them, towards the village they can see in the valley below; she keeps her words balanced between statement and question.

Ronon tilts his head back in the breeze and closes his eyes for a moment. Teyla doesn't know if he's chasing the scent of something, or the sound, but the only answer he gives her is "Reminds me of home," and sets off after the others. Teyla follows.

They pass people working the fields on the way there, stooped low over crops that must be close to picking. Some of them stand to watch them pass, but none of them seem inclined to greet them, or ask them who they are. Perhaps that is only to be expected, Teyla thinks; Ronon has moved swiftly to take point, and the pace he is setting is not that of a man who wishes to stop, to make idle chatter. Ronon, as ever, is not patient.

The village square, when they reach it, is filled with the same assortment of people as most gathering spaces are. There is nothing remarkable in the cluster of elders sitting in the shade, gossiping and playing boardgames and yelling orders to sons- and daughters-in-law, or the children who are playing in the dust. One child tumbles as they approach, setting up a wail at the injustice of a skinned knee; from the corner of her eye, Teyla can see Rodney wince, but refrain from saying anything.

Ronon hails the men who watch them, impassively, from beneath the shelter of a spreading _meren_ tree. "Fathers," he says, "I am looking for Nesha and Fenn Rax. Two Satedans, brothers. I was told they came here to farm nearly two of your years ago." Teyla knows that Rodney and John are watching those men, to see what they will say, but Teyla is watching Ronon. He stands tall and strong, inflexible, and Teyla's heart hurts for fear that if worst comes to worst, he will not bend, but break.

One of the elders looks at the others out of the corner of his eye, but makes no answer, and Teyla's breath catches, because she knows now what must surely come.

"Please," Ronon says. "They are kin."

"Look for them at the boydak trees," the oldest man says. He is small and wizened, the only traces of the man he must once have been visible in the breadth of his shoulders, the long legs that are curled now beneath him. He points towards one of the roads leading out of the village; following the line of his finger, Teyla can see a small, thatched farmhouse, framed in front of a copse of bright green, slender trees. Ronon thanks him, but the old man makes no reply, and no one speaks in the square until they leave.

* * *

"Nesha and Fenn," Ronon says. "Luca." His voice is flat.

"Son of a _bitch_," John says, one hand clutching convulsively on the grip of his P-90; behind her, Teyla can hear Rodney murmur softly to himself, quiet noises of distress. "Why," Rodney says, "Why would they—"

"Theft," Ronon says, snatching down the sheet of paper which has been pinned to Fenn's chest. The writing is in Jherotai and cursive, but Teyla can make out phrases, here and there. _Theft_ and _deception_, _decided by the people_ and _death upon the tree_.

John takes a step forward. "If you want," he says, "buddy, we can go back to the town—"

"No," Ronon says, pinning the notice back to Fenn's chest making the body sway gently, limbs dangling, "No worse than they would have got back on Sateda."

"Maybe we should," Rodney says, hands working uselessly with the force of his distress, "I don't know, cut them down? Bury them, cremate them, _something_, we can't just leave—"

"We can," Ronon says shortly, turning on his heel and heading back towards the gate, giving the town a wide berth. Both John and Rodney turn to Teyla, the expression on their faces a little helpless, a little hopeless. _What should we do?_ they are asking her, _What should we say?_, and Teyla wants to scream, because she doesn't know, she can't say, because there is only so far Ronon will let her in, because there is only so far that Ronon can come, because for all that she is Atlantean now, her people are still alive and still waiting for her.

She settles for shaking her head, and the silence on the walk home is as heavy and oppressive as the air around them.

* * *

Ronon doesn't come to her that night, much as Teyla had expected, opting to run circuits of the city, over and over. At breakfast the next morning, Dr Zelenka tells her quietly that the Colonel had run with him for the first part of the night, Lieutenant Cadman the next, and that Rodney had tracked him over the security monitors in the last hours before dawn.

"He is sleeping now," Zelenka says, breaking up segments of sweet _paÃ¡rva_ fruit to share with her, the juice staining his fingers pink, "Or at least, he has finally gone to his quarters. I think he must be resting, now. He ran for hours. I do not know how he does it."

"I am no longer certain how, myself," Teyla says, honestly. She is no more certain the following night, when Ronon comes and asks to meditate with her, or the night following, when he rests his head on her shoulder and weeps; but she holds him, and allows him to know pain in the safe circle of her arms, and he is still there, come morning.

* * *

They return to Bodel some months later. Elizabeth has treaties to renegotiate, recalcitrant traders to bring into line with pleasant smiles and polite reminders of legally binding contract, of Atlantean might. John and his team trail in her wake as a warning; their reputation precedes them.

Ronon is no longer actively looking, and if Teyla were a different kind of person, more superstitious, she might entertain thoughts that that is why the woman seeks them out in the market place. She is small and red-headed, with eyebrows and eyelashes so pale that they seem almost non-existent; she blinks up at Ronon, and asks him if he is Specialist Dex.

When Ronon tells her he is, or was, she smiles, and ushers forward a child, a young boy, who had been waiting at a nearby street corner. She tells them how she and her husband had taken him in as their own when his mother died in childbirth. "The infection took her before she ever left her childbed," the woman says, "and there was no one with her who could have taken the infant in. She must have been one of the very last to make it through the Ring on Sateda, and I do not think she was strong, even before the stress of the attack, and she must have been in labour even while she fled—" She trails off when she sees the look on Ronon's face.

If he notices her reaction, he says nothing; instead, he hunkers down to look at the boy, and grins at him in a way which Teyla knows can be completely disarming. "I'm Ronon Dex," he says softly, "What's your name?"

"I'm Kesh," the boy says, around the thumb in his mouth. Teyla cannot tell if it is from nervousness, or if it is habitual. "I'm nine."

"That's a very good age to be," Ronon says, and reaches out to ruffle Kesh's mop of hair, the same colour as Ronon's but short and fine, before running his thumb down the mark on Kesh's neck.

"We gave him the tattoo of a first-born of Sateda," his gift-mother offers. "There was someone in the city who knew how to do this, and it seemed fitting."

"Last-born might have been better," Ronon says, standing once more. His breathing is a little unsteady, and he takes Teyla's hand in his, but if there is bitterness in his voice, she can't detect it. He smiles at the woman and ruffles Kesh's hair once more before they leave, tells him to mind his gift-mother's words, to grow up well.

Half-way between the market and the meeting hall where the others wait, Teyla stops and pulls him to her, drawing his forehead down to hers. They stand there for a moment in the middle of the street's bustle, eyes closed, until Ronon's breathing steadies, and his grip on her hand is not quite so tight.

"You have done well to find even so many, Ronon," Teyla says. "You must know that."

"Three hundred still," he says, pressing close to her. "Three hundred, Teyla. Have to keep looking."

"Of course," she says, "of course." She holds him up, as he holds her; the curve of his cheek is smooth skin and rough hair under the palm of her hand, his lips are warm against hers—because she knows what hope is, how hard it is to regain when lost. There is hope, still, and there is this, now. She is thankful.


End file.
